


Mapping by Thread

by aeli_kindara



Series: Scaffolding 'Verse [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Lyall Lupin's A+ Parenting, Marauders, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 10:58:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13316682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeli_kindara/pseuds/aeli_kindara
Summary: Sirius finds out Remus's secret — or at least, he thinks he does.





	Mapping by Thread

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is sort of remixed from [Study of Wild Things](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13036455), with elements from [Scaffolding](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13065072) as well, but it should be fine as a standalone. Basically: what if Remus's lies worked too well?
> 
> Title refers to the legend of the Minotaur in the labyrinth, which seemed relevant in my brain.
> 
> Warnings for family dysfunction/abuse, which I'll explain in more detail in the end notes.

Sirius was in a foul mood that day, anyway.

He was in a foul mood, but that wasn’t any excuse for taking it out on Remus. Remus: still pale and tired from wherever it was he went every month; Remus, all pinched mouth and wary eyes and hands too big for his body and knuckles too big for his hands. It made Sirius worry, and worrying made him angry, and Remus never shrank from his anger, never rose to it either, just let it break around him like a rock in the stream.

Anyway, James and Peter were in detention together, for being idiots and getting caught with a bag full of dungbombs. So there was no one else to dull Sirius’s fury or egg it on. Just implacable fucking Remus Lupin, apologizing and demurring and never meeting Sirius’s eyes and driving him out of his fucking head all the while. So, that was Sirius’s excuse, if he got one. Not that he deserved it.

“Where do you go, every month?”

It was sudden, and harsh. It had nothing to do with what they’d been talking about — Snape, and his insufferable face, which Remus didn’t seem quite ready to condemn, because he was an awful fucking friend. But it did what Sirius wanted, startled Remus into looking up and meeting his eyes.

“I’m sorry?” Remus said.

 _A sorry excuse for a conversationalist,_ Sirius thought. But his mouth said, “Where. Do you _go._ Every month?”

“I don’t,” Remus murmured, looking away from Sirius again, his hands moving unconsciously to pick at the frayed hem of his jumper, as they did when he was nervous. “I know I may, I seem to get — to get called away, a little more often maybe —"

“Bullshit,” said Sirius, and snatched Remus’s hand away from its fidgeting. Which left him gripping Remus’s wrist, rather awkwardly. “And stop doing that,” he added, releasing it. “You’re full of shit. I’ve been keeping track. You go away every month, like clockwork, and I want to know why.”

Remus stared down at his hands, but didn’t start picking at his jumper again, though his fingers twitched as though they’d like to. “I told you, my mum’s been sick —”

“ _Bullshit,_ ” Sirius snarled again. He reached out to grip Remus’s chin, _force_ him to meet Sirius’s eyes. “I _know_ you’re lying. Your mum’s not _always_ sick, not once a month every month, is she? And don’t give me some shit about your — your dog dying, or something, I _know_ you’re lying —”

“I don’t have a dog,” Remus muttered.

“Fuck if I care,” Sirius snapped. “We’re supposed to be _friends_. Friends don’t keep secrets.”

Remus was looking at him oddly, as if he’d just seen Sirius properly for the first time. “Are we?” he asked softly. 

“Are we _what_ ,” Sirius demanded.

“I mean —” Remus’s face had turned a little pink. “I’ve always been under the impression that you didn’t particularly like me.”

“Yeah, well, don’t take it personally,” Sirius said roughly, releasing him. “I’m a prat, aren’t I? Of course we’re friends, you ninny. Except for all the fucking _secrets_ ,” he added with a glare.

“Right,” said Remus, picking at his jumper again, then stilling. “Right, well. If we _are_ — that — then, will you promise not to tell anyone?”

“What, not even the others?” The words were out of Sirius’s mouth before he had thought about them, and he saw Remus’s mouth twist, his eyes slide away. “Yeah,” he decided, abruptly. “Yeah, I promise.”

“Right,” said Remus, glancing sidelong at him, again. “Right, well — all right. I’m _not_ always lying. It is about my mum. She has this Muggle disease, cancer, where some of your cells sort of, start multiplying and trying to take over your body. And she’s getting treatment, once a month, chemotherapy, but it makes her really sick. So I go home to help her.”

Sirius stared. Responses fought for his favor — _well, if that’s all, you could have just SAID_ and _chemo-WHAT?_ and _can’t they just fix her with magic?_ — but what came out of his mouth was, “Can’t your dad help her?”

Remus let out a sharp laugh, short and barking and completely unlike any sound he’d ever heard Remus make, angry and cynical and humorless. “My dad’s a drunk.”

Sirius stared. There was something here he’d never seen before, something Remus kept buried deep, and — well, he hadn’t been really _sold_ on the story, though he felt like a prat for it. But this, this was different, this was… he felt like he’d suddenly been given some key to unlock Remus Lupin, all his silences and his calmness and his vanishing ways. _My dad’s a drunk._ And his mum with no magic, and sick, and twelve-year-old Remus Lupin left to look after her the best he could.

“Right,” Sirius said, into the uncomfortable silence. It swallowed up the word and stretched on, Remus now determinedly staring down at his shirtsleeve.

“Well,” he said, finally, drawing away, voice raw and a little angry. “Now you know, right? So you can — leave it alone. All right?”

“Yeah,” said Sirius slowly. “Yeah. All right.”

Remus gave another jerky nod, gathered up his books, and disappeared out the common room door.

\---

He kept his promise.

It was _hard_ , actually, not letting on, especially when Remus came back to Hogwarts pale and drawn and shaky, and Sirius found himself wondering just how bad things were. He’d snuck looks at some Muggle Studies books in the library, and found what Remus hadn’t said: that cancer killed, that there was no known cure, just ways to beat it into submission. And wizards didn’t get it, so no magical cure, either.

Which meant Remus’s mum might well die, and leave him alone with his drunk of a father, and three friends he didn’t even trust with the truth. Sirius held no illusions: Remus had only told him because he’d practically forced it out of him. He didn’t want Sirius to know anything. Sirius could see it in the tense line of his shoulders whenever he caught Sirius watching him too long, in the set of his mouth, the way he bent low over his work on the occasions Sirius thought he might say something.

Well, he’d promised. And if Remus wanted him to let it alone — he could let it alone.

That was before the Hospital Wing.

It was a few months later, nearly the end of second year, and Remus had disappeared again. It varied a little, how long he took to get back — sometimes he was at their first class, but sometimes he didn’t show up all day, and once he’d even been gone a second night. It seemed to have been getting worse, and Sirius didn’t like to think what that meant. He liked it even less that Snape had noticed.

“Where’s your little friend?” Snape sneered that morning in Potions, in an undertone so Slughorn couldn’t hear. “What’d you do, Black, fuck him too hard last night? I always thought you two were —”

Faster than thought, Sirius’s wand was out, his face twisted in a feral snarl, and Snape’s face was exploding in boils. The classroom around them erupted in yells as students jumped to their feet — Snape had overset his cauldron, which poured hissing liquid across the room. “ _Densaugeo!_ ” he yelled, and Sirius felt his front teeth swelling, growing, pressing painfully against the others in his jaw. He tried to hurl another hex, but he could barely speak the incantation, and then Slughorn was between them.

“Boys!” he shouted. “ _Boys!_ Really! Never in my days as a teacher… detention, both of you! And fifteen points from each of your houses. Go on, calm down now, we’d better get you to Madam Pomfrey… Class, you may finish simmering your potions while I escort these young miscreants to the Hospital Wing. My word!”

And he dragged them both, glaring daggers at each other, from the classroom.

Pomfrey dealt with Snape first — a simple countercurse, and he was on his way. Sirius took a few minutes longer, which left him with a smarting pride to go with the pain in his teeth. Pomfrey had needed to shrink them back down to size, and to his immense humiliation, his eyes were watering with pain by the time she was done. Pomfrey humiliated him further by clucking in sympathy and going to fetch a pain-killing potion, despite his protestations that he didn’t _need_ it, _really_ , he was _fine_ —

“Oh, bother,” she said suddenly, going through her cabinets. “I’ve used the last of it this morning. I’ll just go down to Professor Slughorn’s office, shall I — class should be out by now, and I know he was brewing me a fresh batch. I’ll be back in a hurry, dear, stay right there.”

Sirius had no intention of obeying. He sprang to his feet as she bustled out, and was nearly at the doorway to follow her when something caught his eye. Another door, half hidden behind a curtain, and just barely ajar — it was from here that Pomfrey had emerged, when Slughorn had dragged them into the Hospital Wing. What was back there? It was the opposite end of the long room from her offices — in fact, Sirius had never noticed it before. He could have sworn that door had taken the place of what was usually a blank stone wall.

He crept forward, and peered inside.

It was another hospital room — a private one. Light spilled from a single high window over a small bed, made up in crisp white sheets, with a blanket crumpled in the center of the bed as if it had been recently vacated. A wicker chair stood at the bedside, next to a small wooden table still strewn with Madam Pomfrey’s supplies: scissors, bandages, a few bottles of potion. The room smelled of clean laundry, but there was a tang of old blood beneath it in the air.

Sirius inched forward, curious, and the blankets on the bed moved.

He jumped back, choking down his own startled yell. The bed hadn’t been recently abandoned after all — whoever was in it was curled into such a tight, miserable ball he hadn’t seen them at first beneath the thick blanket. Sirius groped for the doorknob, heart racing, as a tousled head of chestnut-brown hair emerged from the blankets.

Then he stopped.

It was Remus, and he looked _awful_.

His face was mottled with bruises, one eye swollen nearly shut. Three parallel gashes ran down his left cheek, as if he’d been clawed by some wild animal. Fresh blood oozed from a scrape on his forehead.

“Remus?” Sirius whispered.

Remus’s eyes flew open — one of them, at any rate, the other was puffed to a slit — and he sat bolt upright. The blanket slid as he did, and Sirius glimpsed a pale, skinny chest, and more bruises, dappling Remus’s ribs. His right arm was in a sling, held close to his body. Another deep red gouge ran from the base of his neck across his collarbone and down his chest, disappearing under the sling. Beneath his injuries, he was white as a sheet.

“Jesus, mate,” said Sirius, hurrying forward. There was an odd buzzing in his ears, and he didn’t feel quite connected to his limbs, somehow. “What happened to you? Are you all right?”

“ _Don’t touch me,_ ” Remus snarled, with something in his voice that brought Sirius up short, a mere foot from the bed.

“Mate —” he said again. Remus was hunched over, breathing hard, and the injuries were evident on his back, too, on every inch of him Sirius could see. He had an overwhelming urge to reach out and _touch_ him, to make it better, the way he had with Regulus when they were both kids and didn’t hate each other yet. The way a scraped knee or a paper cut always fixed itself, when Sirius touched his little brother. But this wasn’t a paper cut. This was…

“Move,” whispered Remus. When Sirius didn’t comply, he shoved him back with his free arm, then rummaged beneath the bed where Sirius had been standing, coming up a moment later with a metal bucket. He retched over it, then vomited, lips curled back like a dog.

When he was done, he sat without moving, head bowed, hands shaking slightly where they gripped the rim of the bucket. Gently, as gently as he could, Sirius moved forward and eased it from Remus’s grip. Their fingers barely brushed, but Remus released the bucket instantly.

“ _Evanesco_ ,” Sirius muttered, and the mess in the bucket vanished. He set it down again by the bed, and watched Remus, and said nothing.

Remus didn’t speak, either; didn’t lift his head to meet Sirius’s eyes. But after a few minutes, his shaking seemed to ease. A few more, and he darted a wary glance at Sirius, immediately looking away again.

“You look like shit,” Sirius ventured, after a moment.

Remus gave a startled laugh, but immediately winced and stopped. “I’ll be all right,” he said hoarsely. “Few hours, you know Pomfrey… all cleared up.”

 _What HAPPENED to you,_ asked Sirius’s brain, but he somehow knew better than to say it. “How’s your mum?” he asked instead, and was rewarded by another startled, wary glance.

“She’s… all right,” Remus said eventually, and did not elaborate.

The silence settled over them like a lead blanket. They were both watching each other without quite meeting each other’s eyes, and every glance at his friend’s mangled face seemed to wind something tighter in Sirius’s chest. Pomfrey would be back soon, and he should go, but he couldn’t just — he couldn’t —

“It’s your dad,” he said suddenly, explosively. “It’s your dad, isn’t it.”

Remus was looking at him properly, now, and seemed to have straightened a little. There was dread in his face, but also something fierce that Sirius didn’t recognize. “What,” he said, “what’s my dad, exactly?”

And of course Remus would, it was just like Remus, really, to drag the words out of him. Remus Lupin who always corrected his essays and required him to _speak in complete sentences, please_ and couldn’t even let _this_ shit go without messing with Sirius’s fucking _grammar_.

“It’s your dad,” he said, loudly, “who hurts you.”

Remus stared.

There was something strange in his eyes, some odd mixture of guilt and tenderness and that fierceness still, something that looked strangely like pride. Sirius _knew_ pride, knew the way it made you say and do stupid things, but it was incongruous on Remus’s face. He was sitting straight now, ramrod straight, with no sign of the pain that had bent him double, and he met Sirius’s gaze. He seemed to be deciding something.

“No,” he said finally, “it’s not.”

Sirius opened his mouth again, to say what he didn’t know — _bullshit_ or _well then who does_ or _I’ll kill him_ — but before he could, there were sounds from the Hospital Wing outside.

“ _Go_ ,” Remus hissed, and after only an instant of hesitation, Sirius obeyed.

\---

Remus hadn’t asked him not to tell anyone, but he didn’t anyway. It seemed like if the stuff about his mum was private, then this certainly was too. And if Sirius had gotten a little protective — if he’d started owling to Diagon Alley for the best dark chocolate Black money could buy, and slipping bars into Remus’s book bag when he wasn’t looking, if he clung to his elbow like a bodyguard in the days before and after his trips home — well, no one seemed to comment, though he sometimes thought James had noticed. He and Remus never spoke of it, though Remus ate the chocolate, and seemed grateful.

That summer was miserable.

It was all he could think of, those two months: Remus, at home, alone with his sick mum and _that man_. He snapped at Regulus when Regulus whined about how mean mum and dad were, and wished, more than anything, he could invite Remus to come visit. He couldn’t, of course. His parents, always nutters about the purity of the wizarding race, had been even worse lately, muttering foul things about Mudbloods and half-breeds, and Sirius couldn’t very well invite a friend with a Muggle mum to come stay. He pestered James to invite them all over instead, but the responses he got were vague and noncommittal, full of _Dad’s really busy at work_ and _Mum seems really stressed already, I don’t want to make her deal with houseguests too, I’m sorry mate._

Peter’s mum, they were all convinced, was psychotic, so that was hardly an option.

 _My friends are the worst_ , Sirius thought, and hid in his room and stewed.

To make matters worse, when they got back to school, Remus wasn’t there.

Sirius was on the point of marching up to Dumbledore’s office and demanding he launch a rescue mission when Peter found the owl. “Oi,” he said, “look, it’s from Remus.” Opening and scanning it, he said, “I guess his mum’s not well, and Dumbledore said he could stay a couple extra days to take care of her. He’ll be back on Friday. Fragile lady, isn’t she, Mrs. Lupin?”

Sirius glared at him, feeling somehow territorial. Remus had trusted _him_ with that secret, damn it, and he wasn’t about to go breaking his word.

“Yeah,” said James slowly, “about that.”

James had been oddly quiet on the train to Hogwarts this year, barely speaking at all since they’d all realized Remus was absent. He had a thoughtful, troubled look about him now, and seemed to be deciding whether to speak or not. “Look,” he said, pacing. “Look, I wasn’t sure if I should even say anything to you, but — I think I better. Hasn’t it ever struck you as odd, the way Remus goes away every month?”

Peter nodded. Sirius said nothing.

“Right, well,” said James. “Well — I think I’ve figured it out. I mean, I _know_ I have.”

“Then you should keep your mouth shut,” Sirius interrupted him, harshly. “It’s his business, isn’t it?”

James turned to him in surprise. “Sirius, mate — well, don’t take this the wrong way, but I would have thought you of all people would want to know.”

Sirius scowled. “I _already_ know. And he asked me not to tell anyone, so I _didn’t_. ‘Cause like I said, it’s his business.”

James stared. “You _knew?_ How? Did you work it out for yourself?”

“He told me.” Sirius crossed his arms, frowning.

“He _told_ you,” James repeated faintly. “And you didn’t — mate, don’t take this the wrong way, but you really didn’t care to inform the rest of us that our roommate is a _werewolf_?”

\---

“ _WHAT?_ ” yelled Sirius and Peter, in the same breath.

“Did you say a _werewolf_?” Peter gasped.

“You’re a _lunatic_ ,” Sirius shouted. “Remus isn’t — he’s not — that’s absurd, his _mum_ is sick, that’s why he goes home every month, she’s _dying_ and you’re throwing around crazy stories about him being a — a —”

“I don’t know anything about his mum being sick,” James interrupted, looking pale. “Maybe she is, but… that’s not where he goes every month, Sirius. Maybe he said that to get you off his back, or something. I’m not joking around here. I’m certain. He’s a werewolf.”

Sirius gaped. Peter sputtered. James sighed, and held his hands up in a gesture of peace. “Look,” he said, “I’ll start at the beginning, all right?”

So he did. The story of how his dad, in his Auror days, had been good friends with Lyall Lupin. The story of their falling out, somewhere around Lyall’s retirement, and how ever since James had started Hogwarts, Mr. Potter had often asked after “the Lupin boy,” how he was doing in school, how he was fitting in, whether he seemed happy.

“So what,” Sirius interrupted. “So his old coworker went off the rails, and he’s worried about his son — he’s got reason to, you don’t know what Remus’s dad is like —”

“Shut up and let me talk,” said James, and Sirius bridled furiously.

His dad had also, James said, been working hard on a piece of legislation concerning treatment of magical creatures and half-breeds. He always told James about his work, James explained, and he remembered his dad being proud, one day when he was eight or nine, that he and Dumbledore had rammed a landmark bill through the Ministry. “Ends the neighborhood reporting requirements for underage werewolves, so long as they have a safe place to transform,” Mr. Potter had declared with a smile.

“But recently,” James continued, “there’s been another werewolf bill he’s been nattering on about, about — making it a crime to kill a werewolf without evidence of wrongdoing and, if there’s no immediate threat to life and limb, a proper trial. He talks to me about that stuff, but he and my mom really get into it sometimes after I’m supposed to be in bed and, well — I overheard them one night, talking about something Lyall Lupin had done, and how this bill would make it illegal. The way they were talking, it sounded like whatever it was, it was what had caused my dad and Remus’s dad to fall out, so — I sneaked a look at the files in his briefcase a few days later.”

Neither Sirius nor Peter spoke. The room was silent, and James’s face was very white. His next words came out in a whisper.

“It was all there,” he said. “Every detail, all the way back to — he was bitten when he was five. On purpose, too — his dad had insulted a werewolf, so the werewolf came back and positioned himself to bite Mr. Lupin’s son. When Mr. Lupin saw what had happened, he tried to kill Remus.”

Peter made a strangled noise. Sirius stared, his mind numb with shock.

“Remus’s mum stopped him,” James continued, in an even quieter whisper. “It was really brave of her, being a Muggle and all. Then Mr. Lupin tried to petition the Ministry to have his son executed. My dad was one of the ones who blocked it. He and Dumbledore started working together to try and make sure Remus could grow up as much like a normal kid as possible — that he had a safe place to transform, and could live a normal life for the rest of the month. But I mean, his dad — I guess it’s kind of an open secret at the Ministry, that his dad lost his job and turned to drink, though not many people know why. My dad _hates_ that Remus has to live with him, but as bad as Mr. Lupin is, the Control and Regulation of Magical Creatures guys are worse.”

Silence fell, awkward and impenetrable. “So,” Peter said finally, his voice squeaking a little, “so, when he goes away, it’s to — turn into a wolf somewhere.”

“Yeah,” James said, after a moment. “Yeah, I think that’s the general idea.”

“And the rest of the time, he’s — perfectly safe, and — and human,” Peter continued, tentative.

“Yeah, I mean, more or less,” James said. “You know, there’s certain things about werewolves, even when they’re human — magic doesn’t work on them as well, it’s really hard to hurt a werewolf by magic. And they’re supposed to have really keen senses, even when they’re human, but I mean — you _know_ Remus. He’s as normal as they get. Aside from being a little too into books and not enough into girls, I mean.”

“Yeah,” said Peter. “Blimey. That’s — his own dad tried to kill him?”

“That’s the size of it,” James said grimly.

Silence fell. Sirius’s brain didn’t seem to be working; it seemed as if James’s words had frozen it in place, and all he could think, or hear, or feel, was a roaring like the sound of the Hogwarts Express pulling even with the platform. He wondered, in a detached way, when his thoughts would start again, and when they did, what they might be.

“What do we do?” asked Peter in a quiet voice. “We can’t _tell_ him we know, can we? If it’s such a big secret?”

“I think we’ve got to,” James said, immediately. “I mean, how would you feel, if you were hiding something like that? People _hate_ werewolves. He must think we would hate him too, if we found out. We’ve got to tell him so he knows we don’t.”

“Right,” said Peter, in a voice that just barely trembled. “Right. Of — of course we don’t.”

With a jolt, Sirius realized they were both looking at him. “We don’t,” James repeated, with more confidence. “Do we, Sirius?”

“Whatever,” Sirius muttered, and kicked his chair over on the way out the door.

\---

All things considered, Remus took it well.

Taking it well, in his case, meant leaping to his feet halfway through James’s meandering explanation, the chair he’d been sitting in falling over backwards behind him. He was shaking, like he had been that day in the Hospital Wing, his hands balling into tight fists. He’d only been back a few days; there was still something arthritic in the way he moved, and some compartment of Sirius’s mind realized that what he’d seen that day, that happened to Remus’s body _every month_ , and he did it to himself. Some part of him knew that, but it was hard to find past the furious sense of betrayal, and he found himself watching Remus at a clinical remove, wondering where he might see the werewolf — a heightened reflex, a surge of strength. A complete lack of compunction about manipulating one’s friends.

“We don’t care,” James said quickly. “Look — this doesn’t change anything, right? You’re our mate. We just thought you should know we know, so you don’t have to — y’know — keep making up stories and all that.”

“You don’t care,” Remus repeated faintly. “I — I’m sorry. You don’t _care_?”

James glanced at the other two. Peter gave a funny lopsided grin; Sirius didn’t move. “Not really, no.”

“You don’t — you realize,” Remus said, with an edge of hysteria to his voice, “you realize I — if I ever _forgot a full moon_ , you’d all be dead in your beds by morning. You realize that, right?”

“Well,” said James thoughtfully, “I mean, that’s pretty fucking cool, isn’t it?”

Remus stared.

“I mean, this is probably the coolest thing about me,” James elaborated. “We are men. Manly men. We live with a fucking _werewolf_. Nobody better mess with us.”

“Yeah,” Peter added, “all of James’s Quidditch tricks have nothing on this.” Seeing Remus’s face, he added, “Not that we’d _tell_ anyone. And, you know, you’re basically the most responsible person ever. I don’t think you’d, like, forget the full moon and eat our faces by accident. On purpose, maybe, if Sirius was being annoying enough.”

“Right,” said Remus faintly. “Right. I’ll — try to avoid that.”

“See that you do,” James commanded, agreeably. “Well, now that’s settled. Anyone for a game of Snap?”

\---

It was nearly a month before Sirius and Remus spoke to each other — at least not any more than necessary. Sirius had bought a great box of dark chocolate that summer in Diagon Alley, had been looking forward to the little look of surprised, embarrassed pleasure on Remus’s face, every time he discovered one amongst his quills and ink bottles. He’d been, in short, an idiot.

He shoved the whole box into Remus’s trunk one day as the full moon approached, squashed the gold-embossed lid as he forced the trunk closed. _He_ didn’t want it, after all. God knew Remus didn’t have the money to buy chocolate this good for himself.

They happened to be alone in the room when Remus saw it, Sirius sprawled in his four-poster and staring determinedly at the canopy. He’d been mulling over some stupid plan to jinx Snape, which always seemed to put him in a better mood. He hadn’t intended to _be there_ when Remus saw it. He jumped out of bed and was halfway through the door when Remus’s trunk creaked open.

There was a stillness in the air behind him that stopped him in his tracks.

“Sirius,” said Remus, quietly. “Sirius, you — I can’t take this.”

“Fine,” snapped Sirius. “Throw it in the lake then. That’s what I’ll do, if you give it back.”

“What can I,” Remus started, and out of the corner of his eye, Sirius could see that his face was pale, and his hands twisting in his sleeves. “No — I’m sorry. You’re well within your rights to — to hate me, I understand, I just — I’m sorry,” he finished helplessly.

“Save it for someone who cares,” Sirius snarled, and banged the door loudly behind him.

\---

Two mornings later, James and Peter still snoring soundly in their beds, Sirius rose at dawn, nicked James’s invisibility cloak, and stole out of the common room. In ten minutes, breathing hard, he was at the Hospital Wing door, with an ear pressed against its wood. He couldn’t hear anything inside, and was just about to try the knob when the sound of shuffling footsteps came from around the corner. Sirius flattened himself against the wall beside a suit of armor, and tried to breathe softly.

A moment later, Madam Pomfrey shuffled into view, one arm supporting a staggering Remus Lupin. “Almost there, dear,” she murmured. “Really, I don’t see why you won’t let me conjure you a stretcher, there’s no need for you to put yourself through this…”

Remus didn’t answer as they shuffled closer, his face white under a fresh set of bruises. He was favoring his right leg heavily, and only seemed to have one arm through the sleeve of his jumper, the other dangling useless against his side. Dried blood flaked from his cheek, but beneath his injuries, his face was set.

Halfway down the corridor, Remus gasped sharply and turned away from Pomfrey, pressing first a palm and then his forehead against the stone wall. He was mere inches from Sirius, who held his breath, not daring to move. From here, he could _smell_ the blood on Remus, see how it matted his hair. He could trace the lines of cuts and bruises on Remus’s cheek, almost feel the hitch in his breath against something painful in his ribs. He took in two halting breaths, eyes closed, as Madam Pomfrey fussed at his elbow; then coughed suddenly, and a fine spray of blood peppered the wall.

“ _Really_ , dear,” Pomfrey was saying, “please, just let me magic you into bed and we can mend that contusion in a jiffy, there’s _no need_ to walk when you’re in this state —”

“There’s a need,” mumbled Remus, eyes falling closed again. After a moment, they opened, and he straightened with obvious effort, swaying as he stood clear of the wall. Ignoring Pomfrey’s outstretched hand, he limped unassisted to the door, and disappeared inside.

\---

It didn’t change anything, Sirius told himself.

The iciness between them didn’t thaw. He certainly hadn’t _forgiven_ Remus — not by any means. When forced to speak to each other, they were perfunctory and polite. James and Peter seemed to draw apart from both of them, at times, choosing not to take sides. Which was fine, Sirius thought with an angry twist of his gut.

None of it stopped him from following Remus, the next full moon evening.

It was a harder job in the evening than the morning. He might be able to wander off without attracting James or Peter’s attention, but he couldn’t very well steal James’s invisibility cloak without inviting questions, and there was far more traffic in the halls as he trailed Remus to Madam Pomfrey’s office. He knew which direction they’d come, the morning after the previous full moon — but where did Remus go?

He lost them before they were out of the castle.

He tried again the next morning, waiting at the last spot he’d seen them the night before, and again witnessed Remus limping through the halls on trembling limbs, blood-encrusted and with a wildness in his eyes. There were bite marks on his bare left arm.

The third full moon of the term, he nearly had it. He’d followed them out to the grounds, and in the morning, he’d seen Pomfrey and Remus making their way up from somewhere down near the Whomping Willow. Did he go to the Forbidden Forest? There was danger there, certainly, but nothing on a werewolf.

In early December, it transpired that Sirius would be staying at Hogwarts for Christmas. Tensions with his family had not dissipated since that summer; he’d gotten several Howlers from his mum in the last few months over his insistence on getting in fights with “nice pureblood boys from good families,” as she said. The last one had explicitly disinvited him from Christmas festivities — not, he thought savagely, that he’d ever wanted to go.

Remus was staying, too. James and Peter were both going home, but the full moon fell on Christmas Eve this year, and Remus had explained, a little hesitantly, that accommodations at Hogwarts were better than those at home. No one had pressed him on what, exactly, that meant.

Still, Sirius thought. A deserted castle would be by far his best chance to figure out where exactly Remus went.

James had taken the cloak home with him, but Sirius prided himself in at least being _competent_ at sneaking around without it. It was much easier to track Remus and Pomfrey without the flow of other students. The shadows of trees across the snowy grounds were long as he trailed them outside, and he hid behind a bush to watch as they approached the Whomping Willow again. They seemed to be heading straight toward it, in fact, and just outside the reach of its waving branches, Remus stopped.

“I’m all right from here, Madam Pomfrey,” Remus said. “Really.”

“Are you sure, dear?” Pomfrey fussed, dusting something off the shoulder of Remus’s robes, and he gave her a lopsided smile.

“I promise,” he said. “Go on, it’s Christmas Eve. I can’t thank you enough for staying over for me, but you should go be with your family.”

“Well,” said Madam Pomfrey with a sad smile, “all right. I’ll see you in the morning, Remus.”

“Thanks,” said Remus softly, and turned to face the Willow. He had picked up a long stick from the ground, and peered through the whipping branches, then thrust it suddenly, confidently, forward.

The willow froze.

Sirius gaped in astonishment as Remus slipped between the paralyzed branches, and vanished between the roots of the tree. How had he done that? The willow was already stirring again, so clearly the effect didn’t last long. Sirius glanced up the hill at Madam Pomfrey, who was making her slow way back to the castle. He couldn’t possibly go investigate until she was back inside — she might turn back and see him. He waited long, agonizing minutes before finally, finally, she disappeared into the castle, and the door closed behind her.

Sirius approached the willow warily. Its branches were whipping angrily again, seeming to sense his approach. There was the stick Remus had used to do whatever he did — but what was it? Sirius picked it up and experimentally prodded it between the willow’s flailing branches. The tree expelled this intrusion with such force that Sirius was nearly knocked over.

Well — not like that, then. He remembered the movement Remus had used, the swift, sure thrust. He tried again, and failed.

After a while, he discovered that he was best able to make inroads against the Willow if he lay flat on his belly and slid the stick under the reach of most of its flailing branches. He tried this a while, poking aimlessly at the trunk, but nothing happened.

Long minutes were passing; the light was almost gone now. Sirius thrust aimlessly, angrily at the willow. Nothing. Finally, with an angry shout, he threw the branch at the trunk.

It bounced off a small knot, low on the right side of the tree, and the willow froze.

For a moment, Sirius only stared. He had done it — he had actually done it.

The willow had only frozen briefly for Remus, though. Sirius took a hurried glance around, and darted between the branches, which seemed to creak ominously at him. The hole between the roots of the tree looked barely large enough for someone of Pomfrey’s proportions to slip through — even Sirius stuck for a moment before dropping the floor of a low-ceilinged, earthen passageway.

“ _Lumos_ ,” he muttered, and light flared from his wand.

There was no sign of Remus. The passageway stretched on ahead of him, roots occasionally reaching from its ceiling. Sirius ducked his head low, and started down it.

\---

The passage seemed to slope downward, as if he was descending into the bowels of the earth. Water dripped occasionally, unpleasantly, onto the back of Sirius’s neck, and he was just starting to wonder if he’d somehow taken a wrong turn when the passage began to slope upward again. A moment later, ahead of him, he heard a scream.

He had broken into a run before he had time to think. The passage twisted right, then left, climbing upward more steeply, and suddenly Sirius was at the foot of a wooden staircase. At the top stood a heavy door, and from behind that door, another hair-raising scream.

Sirius clattered up the stairs, wand raised, heart leaping in his throat. He tried the knob, and found it locked. “ _Alohomora,_ ” he whispered.

The door swung open.

For a moment, all seemed peaceful. Cautiously, wand held high, Sirius took a step inside.

Remus was crouched at the other end of the room, illuminated by a shaft of moonlight coming through the cracks in the boarded up windows. But it was Remus as Sirius had never seen him before. He was naked, with his hands braced against the floor, as if he’d fallen and couldn’t quite find the strength to get up. And as Sirius watched, his back began to sprout fur, his spine rippling under his skin, and Sirius could _hear_ the groaning and cracking of tendon and bone, in the instant before another scream split the air.

Sirius saw, then, why Remus was crouched so oddly. His arms and legs were already half-wolf; before Sirius’s eyes, they too rippled and changed, as Remus screamed, and screamed again. He was sprouting fur, and claws; his ears were becoming elongated and triangular, and his body was lengthening; he had a tail now. Then, as the werewolf turned its head to the ceiling, Remus’s face disappeared entirely, and his scream broke into a long, mournful howl.

“Remus?” breathed Sirius, fingers tight on his wand.

The wolf turned.

Its yellow eyes gleamed bright in the light of Sirius’s wand, and there was no sign of his friend there; no sign of anything but a massive, hungry predator. For a moment, it merely looked at him.

“Remus,” said Sirius again, and he heard his own voice shaking.

There was no sign. No growl, no menace; none of the things he’d heard in those monster stories when he was a child. Just those glowing eyes, and a tensing of hindquarters, preparation to spring.

Sirius flung himself back through the door in the instant before the wolf’s body slammed it shut behind him. His fingers scrabbled with the lock as the door shuddered under another impact. His breath was coming in hot sobs in his throat, and then he was running, _running_ , tripping over tree roots, lungs burning, running to get away from the monster behind the locked door.

\---

He didn’t remember, later, exactly how he’d gotten back to the dormitory. He must have frozen the willow, jammed his fist against that little knot, but he had no recollection of it. Had little memory of anything at all, actually, except those glowing golden eyes and the air burning in his lungs and the need, the terrifying need, to get away.

This, he thought distantly, must be how prey felt. That was what he had been, for that moment: the wolf had looked at him and thought, _prey_. Whatever Remus was, whatever kind of lying little wanker he was, there was nothing of him in that wolf. That wolf was nothing but a monster.

Sirius lay awake that night, sleep an impossible, distant memory. His shaking quieted sometime in the dark hours, but his mind was raw and jangling, the fresh bite of his terror warring with other things now, like Remus’s unearthly screams as something dark rose up from within him to devour him whole.

As morning light began to streak the eastern sky, Sirius sat up in his bed. The blankets were twisted around him, and damp with his sweat, but his mind was clear. Remus. He had to make sure Remus was all right.

He crept out into the grounds again, his muscles aching from his flight or his trembling or both, and concealed himself again while he waited for Pomfrey to reappear. It did not take long; she bustled out of the castle yawning, dressed in a warm, hooded cloak. Sirius wished he’d thought to bring his own.

Pomfrey disappeared into the willow. She seemed to be gone a long time; the sun climbed higher in the sky, beginning to warm Sirius’s hiding place, where he had begun to shiver again. He was beginning to wonder if he had missed them, somehow — if there was another way in — when Pomfrey reemerged from the Willow. She was moving slowly, and a stretcher floated before her.

He could hardly see Remus, for all the blood.

Sirius let out an involuntary gasp, but Pomfrey didn’t seem to hear him. There was blood _everywhere_. It shone like paint on Remus’s face, not a bare inch of pale skin remaining. The white cloth of the stretcher was stained with it, as was the blanket Pomfrey seemed to have wrapped Remus in. Her own hands were bloody, too, and they left a red streak across her forehead as she wiped sweat away, despite the cold morning.

“ _Accio_ resanguinary potion!” Pomfrey said, pointing her wand up at the castle. A moment later, a small vial whizzed through the air. She caught it deftly, and bent low over the floating stretcher. “Here, Remus dear,” she was murmuring, “I just need you to swallow this, and things will be all right. Sh, just swallow.”

Remus coughed suddenly, his chest jerking, and Sirius was almost ashamed of the wave of relief that swamped him. For a moment, he’d thought — he’d been so _still_ —

A few moments later, and Pomfrey was moving again, the stretcher gliding before her. Sirius shivered in the snow for several long minutes before making his way back to the castle.

\---

He wasn’t sure how he fell into sleep — it could only be explained by his bone-deep weariness — but he was woken by the sudden, sharp sound of the dormitory door closing. By the time he had his head raised and his eyes open, he was looking blearily up into Remus Lupin’s furious eyes.

His face was white, whiter than Sirius had ever seen human skin, whiter than the hospital gown he was still wearing. It made the bruises and cuts stand out even more starkly than usual; but Remus’s face, as terrible as it was, was nothing on his arms. They were marred and scored with deep gouges and bite marks, bloody tracks crisscrossing on Remus’s pale skin, some of them sewn closed in the Muggle fashion, with neat lines of dark stitches. He looked like something out of a horror story. He looked like someone who’d been mauled within an inch of his life.

“You _fucking idiot,_ ” Remus hissed.

Sirius blinked, because he was only half awake, and his mind was reeling with the extent of Remus’s wounds; and because this was Remus Lupin, and he did not do confrontation, and he did not say _fuck_.

“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Remus demanded, and Sirius saw that he was shaking on his feet. “Are you — did you think that would be _fun?_ A _lark_ , let’s go watch a werewolf transform? Or are you actually fucking suicidal?”

Sirius gaped.

“Well?” Remus demanded, stepping forward. “Which is it, Black?” For an instant, his leg gave out beneath him, and he nearly fell, but he had righted himself again a moment later, fury blazing from his eyes.

“I didn’t,” Sirius tried. His voice felt thick and useless. “I didn’t think —”

“ _Fucking right you didn’t think!_ ” Remus yelled, voice hoarse and breaking. “I could have _killed_ you, Sirius! I nearly did — and _yes_ , I remember that, just because I don’t have control doesn’t mean I’m not _there!_ ”

Sirius stared at him, stricken. He couldn’t think what to say. “What,” he said, then plunged on, “what happened to you, you were _covered_ in blood —”

“What happened to me,” Remus repeated. “What _happened_ to me? I’m a bloody _werewolf_ , that’s what happened to me, and it almost happened to you, too, in case you’d forgotten!”

There was a stinging in Sirius’s eyes, and Remus’s image blurred for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Remus was still glaring, but his eyes seemed to soften, just a little. “The wolf wants human prey,” he said, quietly. “That’s the whole point, isn’t it? When I scent a human, or _see_ one, and then can’t get to them, it goes a little crazy. Goes after itself. It’s happened before.”

A knife of guilt twisted in Sirius’s gut. “I’m sorry,” he said again, helplessly.

Remus stared past him. He was swaying on his feet, now, but didn’t quite seem to notice. “It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“What? _No!_ What do you mean, what I wanted?”

“Proof,” said Remus, as if explaining something to a very slow child. “Proof that I’m a monster. That it’s a valid reason to hate me. That’s what you want, right? James and Pete pretend it doesn’t bother them, but you never have.” He glanced at Sirius. “Well — I am. Now you know.”

Sirius stared. His anger felt very far away, like a memory from another life. “Is that what you think?”

Remus shrugged, staring past him. He was shaking violently now, his leg threatening to crumple beneath him. He looked even whiter than he had — even his lips were white, and Sirius sat up in alarm. “I’m going to —” said Remus, reaching out a blind hand and missing the bed by a mile, and then he crumpled to the floor.

Sirius gave a shout of alarm, jumping out of bed. But by the time he was crouching at Remus’s side, his eyes were already fluttering open again.

“Oh,” he mumbled, peering up at Sirius’s face. “I fainted, didn’t I.”

“ _Don’t_ move,” Sirius told him. “I’m getting you a glass of water, and you’re staying right there until I’m back.”

Remus didn’t reply, but he didn’t move either, so Sirius figured it was good enough. He was back moments later with a glass, and propped Remus gently up on the pillows from his bed so he could drink it. “Sorry,” Remus mumbled, sipping. “Didn’t mean to do that.”

“People usually don’t mean to faint,” Sirius told him. “Sometimes they do it anyway. Remus — I’ve been an utter shit.”

Remus eyed him warily. “You mean in general, or in some specific instance?”

“I mean,” Sirius forged on, “I’ve been absolutely fucking _furious_ with you for months now, and I’ve been a shit about it.”

“Oh,” said Remus weakly, sipping again. After a moment, he ventured, “Are you still — ah — absolutely fucking furious?”

Sirius considered this. “I don’t think so,” he concluded, after a moment, “not absolutely, anyway.”

Remus’s eyes drifted closed for a moment. “I see,” he said. “Or, rather, I don’t really, I’m not sure what about last night’s events could possibly make you less angry rather than more. I’m rather at sea here, to be honest.”

Sirius couldn’t help it: he laughed. Getting to his feet, he went to open Remus’s trunk, and found the box of chocolates there. Three were missing. He grabbed another, and pressed it into Remus’s hand as he returned to his side.

“D’you know,” he asked, “what I said, when James told us he’d figured out your secret?”

Remus’s eyes opened, vulnerable and blue. “No,” he said, after a moment.

“I told him,” Sirius continued, doling out another piece of chocolate, “that I already knew, and that it was your fucking business, and not his to share around. I told him to shut his fucking mouth about you.”

Remus blinked. There was chocolate on the corner of his mouth. “Ah,” he said.

“Moony,” said Sirius, trying for the first time the affectionate nickname James and Peter had hung on their friend, these past few months. “Moony, you took me for a fucking _ride_.”

“I’m sorry,” said Remus.

“I’m not asking you to be sorry,” Sirius said swiftly. “I get why, I think. Just — you can see where I’m coming from, right? You let me think that I knew all this shit about you no one else did, that — that your mum was dying, and your dad was beating you, and —”

“I didn’t,” Remus interrupted suddenly.

“Sorry?”

“I _didn’t_ ,” Remus insisted. “Sirius, I — I know I lied about my mum, and I felt awful about it, I still do, but I _never_ — not about my dad —”

Sirius stared. “Remus,” he said, as gently as he could. “I — get that I was wrong about that, now. But — I don’t get why you’re so intent on defending the man, when… I mean, Moony, James told us what he did. What he tried to do.”

Remus closed his eyes, processing this. “He read the Ministry reports,” he said. “That makes sense.”

“I’m sorry,” Sirius said again, feeling as though his whole existence was a dreadful invasion of Remus’s privacy. “I just — I mean, why _didn’t_ you lie about it? I would’ve believed you — I mean, I believed it anyway. I know your dad’s a shit, even if I was wrong about the details.”

Remus’s eyelids flickered, but did not open. The blue lines of his veins stood out beneath what seemed like impossibly paper-thin skin. The silence stretched on, pooling around them, until Sirius began to wonder whether Remus had fainted again, or fallen asleep. He was about to speak, to move, to — to check Remus’s pulse, or something, when he spoke.

“I’m not proud,” he said, quietly. His eyes remained closed, but seemed to flicker slightly, a vanishing moment of tension crossing his brow.

“I — what?” said Sirius.

“I’m not proud,” Remus repeated. “I don’t — have that in me, like you do, or even James or Peter. I mean, I’ve been eating this chocolate all term, haven’t I? You wouldn’t have. If you’d looked at it and thought — this is a symbol of my best friend’s, of his disgust for me, of — you said it yourself, you’d have thrown it in the lake. Part of me wanted to. Only I don’t _have_ that. I’m not proud. I — look at that chocolate and I think, anyone with a backbone wouldn’t eat this, wouldn’t have accepted this, not when — and I eat it anyway. You see?”

“Moony,” says Sirius, trying to think what to say, though part of his brain is still caught on those words _best friend_ , “don’t be ridiculous, you’re not —”

“And I,” Remus speaks over him, “I didn’t think _twice_ about lying to you, did I? What I said, about my mum — it’s despicable, I knew it was despicable then, it’s not that I think it’s all right, it’s not that I think that’s an okay way to treat my friends. I just — that never stopped me. I guess I don’t mind debasing myself, really, or I do but not enough, or…” He shivers slightly. “Or I don’t think I’m _worth_ minding about, honestly.”

Sirius thinks, desperately, that he has to find the words, somehow, to convince Remus this isn’t true — that he’s insane — but there’s a lump in his throat, and his wild thoughts can’t find something to grab onto.

“ _Don’t_ argue,” says Remus sharply. “I’m not looking for your — sympathy, or whatever, all right? I’m just trying to explain. I’m not proud. I don’t — do things for my own dignity, or, or my ability to look in the mirror at the end of the day, or any of that — stuff people talk about. That’s not — in me. I don’t expect it to be. Only.”

And he stops. Sirius, looking down at him, fights the urge to reach out and touch, then stops fighting it; brushes a shaky hand through Remus’s hair. It’s clumsy and too fast and not the way boys touch each other at all, but Remus’s eyes open, with a faraway look in them, and he doesn’t seem to mind.

“I couldn’t,” he says finally. “Lie, I mean. Not about that.”

“About your dad,” says Sirius, just to be sure, because his brain is in shambles and he’s not entirely sure what Remus is talking about.

“About my dad,” Remus agrees, still looking somewhere past Sirius; and then suddenly he’s gripping his wrist, fingers sure and strong despite his injuries, and his eyes are on Sirius’s, hard and blue. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m talking in circles. You’re right that my dad’s a shit. He is. He’s a drunk and an asshole, but he’s a drunk and an asshole who used to be an Auror, and he can still be dangerous when he wants to. When he gets off his ass long enough to try.”

With a horrible settling swoop of the gut, Sirius understands. Or thinks he understands. “You didn’t lie,” he says, “because it wouldn’t be a lie.”

But Remus shakes his head, eyes slipping half closed again. “No, I — look. I’ll just tell you, all right? You said James read the Ministry reports. You know he tried to kill me, when I was first bitten.”

Sirius nods, because his throat isn’t working. Remus nods too, perfunctory, as if this is as easy to say as which jam he prefers at breakfast, or maybe to formalize the agreement that they’re treating it that way, because what else can they do. “Well, he hasn’t changed his mind, has he? It’s not often he’s sober enough to _do_ anything about it, but he’ll start going after my mum sometimes, especially around the full moon, talking about how if she’d only let him… And I think sometimes, when he’s sober enough to see what’s what, it _really_ upsets him, what I’ve done to his life. He wants to set things right. So — he tried, one morning, after the full moon. He was determined — wouldn’t let anything stop him. I woke up and my mum was between us, hanging onto him, begging, pleading, trying to drag his arm down, and he pushed her away but his arm had the ax, and — I remember the birds were singing. It was June. I woke up and the birds were singing and then my mum was lying on the floor right next to me with her eyes closed and blood on her face, and I thought —”

He stops, as suddenly as if the air’s been cut off from his lungs. He takes a long breath through his nose, then another. “I’m sorry,” he says, voice just a little clipped. “I’ve never — told anyone, before.”

Sirius turns his hand to catch Remus’s in his own, and squeezes it, carefully. He doesn’t know what to say. “Was she,” he asks finally, and his voice sounds like a hedgehog has crawled up his nose, “was she all right?”

“Yes,” says Remus immediately. “Yes, he’d — he’d just glanced her, really, but I didn’t know that at the time. I just — saw my mum on the floor, and him coming for me with the ax, and I — I didn’t know I could do it, you know? I’ve never been able to do _anything_ , after the transformation. But I was — so scared, and so furious, and I don’t know if it was the adrenaline, or what. If it’s a werewolf thing. I think it must be, partly. I just — one second I was on the floor, and the next I had him pinned against the wall with his own ax handle. And, well — he hasn’t tried anything like that since. I don’t know that he won’t, I have to be ready, but — you see? I couldn’t lie, I couldn’t let you think he hurts me, not when I won’t _let_ him touch either of us, not ever again.”

Sirius had no idea what he could possibly say. Remus’s grip was tight on his hand, which made him think it might be okay to return it; he squeezed hard, and bowed his head, and felt a tear drip off his nose into Remus’s lap. _I’ll kill him,_ he wanted to say, _Tell me I can, and I’ll kill him,_ but that was hardly the point.

How long they stayed like that, Sirius could never have guessed. It seemed long enough for mountains to crumble and cities to rise out of dust; long enough for the sun to set on his old self, a stranger, and limn a new horizon with unfamiliar light. Sirius’s face felt snotty and disgusting, and when Remus finally loosened his grip on his hand, he drew it back and scrubbed his sleeve across his nose. It came away foul; he rolled it back into a heavy, damp cuff that bumped unpleasantly against his elbow. Sirius glanced up at Remus, embarrassed.

Remus was watching him fondly, more color returned to his face and something gentle in his eyes. “You’re an idiot,” he said.

“Yes,” Sirius agreed. _I am,_ he thought. _I am, I am, I am._

“That’s okay,” Remus ventured softly. “I’ve been sort of spectacularly stupid about this too.”

It felt like forgiveness. Like absolution. “Let’s avoid this situation in the future,” Sirius suggested, in a shaky voice.

“Agreed.” Remus’s face twitched into what might have been the beginnings of a smile, then stilled. “Does that — does this mean you’re talking to me again?”

Sirius stared at the carpet. “Yeah,” he mumbled, “I suppose so. Hard to stay mad at someone when they almost kill you, I guess.”

“You are a raving lunatic,” Remus informed him.

“Yeah,” Sirius replied automatically, “but you like me anyway.” And by Remus’s crooked smile, he knew he had done right.

**Author's Note:**

> In this universe, Remus's father doesn't respond well to his son's lycanthropy; he believes Remus should be euthanized and on one occasion tries to kill him himself. Warnings also for alcoholism and general dysfunctional family dynamics.
> 
> In this particular fic, Sirius also mistakenly believes that Remus's father beats him; Remus allows him to believe this rather than admitting that he's a werewolf.


End file.
